Dons striker admits: "Rochdale was just one of those days"

AFC Wimbledon’s on-loan centre forward Charlie Wyke described Saturday’s defeat to promotion-chasing Rochdale as just one of those days.

In what was a tight affair until Scott Hogan netted a 16-minute hat-trick for the visitors in the second half, the Dons were unfortunate not to take the lead with Wyke having two good chances to break the dead lock.

“It’s disappointing, and it’s a bad result,” the 21-year-old on loan from Middlesbrough said.

“It’s just one of them days really: the pitch, a couple of bad decisions didn’t go our way, everything went against us, and our attitude wasn’t really the best.”

Wimbledon’s game-plan came unstuck after just 27 minutes as midfielder Sammy Moore was forced off with a head injury, meaning changing back to 4-4-2 which Wyke believes threw the players off.

He said: “We’d been working on 3-5-2 in training the past couple of days and with the injuries we had to change it, so I don’t think we could have done a lot better than we did today.”

Wyke had a golden chance to put Wimbledon ahead in the second half but he and strike partner Danny Hylton ran into each other after he had rounded the Rochdale keeper Josh Lillis.

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It was just the second time they had started together after both joining the club in January, and Wyke believes the miscommunication was down to the pair still learning to play with one another.

Wyke added: “I don’t really know what happened. I’ve beaten the goalie, I just went to tap it in and got tackled by my own player, but it’s just a lack of communication. We’re still just getting used to each other.

“Nothing quite worked for us today; we’ve just got to bounce back on Tuesday if the game’s on and get three points.”